Chapter 32: Don't Disappoint Me
"Wow. He actually dared to talk to you like that."
Crispin Wayland entered the private booth, finding Rogue alone, idly swirling the drink in her bullet glass.
"Seriously, are you really betting that much on him?"
Rogue shot the heavyset man an annoyed look. "If you could scale fourteen stories without chrome, I'd be betting on you too."
Crispin looked down at his considerable gut, then back at Rogue with mock seriousness. "Nah, I reckon I'd peel off around the third floor."
"Let me put it another way," Rogue continued, ignoring his antics. "If Janus had screwed you over like that, would you have done the same? Stormed his fortress, risked getting flatlined just to teach him a lesson?"
"Me? Come on. No fixer would dare screw me over. Look at this chrome," Crispin said, flexing his augmented bicep.
He dropped the joking tone, understanding her point. As Night City had become more developed, the rules of the game had changed. The power dynamic between fixers and mercs had shifted dramatically. Back in the day, it was an equal partnership: you bring the gig, I do the job, we split the eddies – your finder's fee, my blood money.
But now? Fixers took their cut, and then they bled the mercs dry with hidden fees and manipulated contracts. Ever since Night Corp invited the mega-corps back in to rebuild and enforce a semblance of order, the fixers' status had skyrocketed. An invisible, but very real, class divide had formed between them and the edgerunners.
And the cause? The corps.
The mega-corps needed plausible deniability. They couldn't handle their own dirty work directly, not even with their own agents, because rival corps always had 'journalists' sniffing around. Any scandal, any public outrage, and the local branch manager would be taking a permanent 'vacation.' It wasn't an exaggeration. Kei Arasaka himself had committed seppuku back in the day to save face.
So, they outsourced the wetwork to the street. Even though most mercs were leagues below corporate spec-ops, the corps had no choice. And with that demand, the number of fixers in Night City exploded. They leveraged their contacts and their smooth talk to become the gatekeepers, the middlemen dealing out corpo gigs.
Sure, a merc could try to go direct, bypass the fixer. But unless you were already a legend, why would any client choose you? Because you had a couple of cheap implants and a pair of beat-up pistols? Clients weren't stupid.
Heh. Back in the day, edgerunners were called solos. Now? Most people just called them wage-slaves. Cogs in the machine.
"Alright, cut the crap," Rogue said, rolling her eyes. Crispin was nothing like his father. "We can't get a foothold in Dogtown right now, but Chicago..."
"Hold on, I have to interrupt you there. That place is even worse," Crispin cut her off. "We shouldn't get involved with those people. They're complete fucking psychos."
"When did you start telling me how to run my business?" Rogue's eyes narrowed dangerously.
Crispin shrugged, offering a disarming, goofy smile. "Just giving you a heads-up. They keep talking about the maglev network expansion, but who knows when, or if, that'll actually happen. Besides, that place is more dangerous than Dogtown. A three-hour trip there might as well be a death sentence."
"That place is a literal cyber-hell. Compared to Chicago, Night City looks like a goddamn utopia," Crispin said, his tone turning serious.
Chicago. A neighboring city. The bio-plague leak in 2011 turned it into a quarantine zone. Then, during the Corporate Wars of 2020, it became a major battleground. StormTech tried to rebuild it from the chaos, but an Arasaka virus bomb destroyed everything. Now? Chicago was a fragmented, semi-autonomous cyber-inferno ruled by warring gangs.
After multiple cycles of destruction and rebuilding, it was a true lawless zone. In Night City, full-body conversions were rare; most people only had minor implants. In Chicago? You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who hadn't gone full borg. Night Corp might operate from the shadows here, but at least some NCPD units tried to maintain order. Chicago? Cops? Ghost Cops was more like it. There was no law, no order.
The bio-plague forced massive cybernetic modification on the population just to survive. Night City had occasional cyberpsycho rampages. Chicago was a goddamn cyberpsycho carnival.
Crispin strongly advised against Rogue's plan. He thought things were fine as they were.
He paused, then added, "Besides... Arasaka won't approve. You've already gone behind their backs too many times."
Crispin was about to mention a specific name—"Michi..."
"Alright, shut your mouth!" Rogue snapped, cutting him off impatiently. "If you spoke half as little as your father, you wouldn't be in the position you're in now," she said, looking at Crispin with exasperation.
"I think I'm doing alright. Being your bodyguard has its perks, you know? Lotta street cred," Crispin said, scratching his head sheepishly.
"Get the hell out and go play with yourself! Go!" Rogue waved him away烦躁ly. The Mox kid had already put her on edge, and now Crispin's constant chatter was fraying her last nerve. If she were younger, she would have already slapped him twice. And that Rhys kid who dared talk back to her? He'd get a couple too before leaving.
But... there was something about him. He reminded her of someone she used to know.
Just as Crispin reached the door, Rogue spoke again. "Find some gigs that pass through my desk. I want to see what that kid is capable of."
"Got it. I'll find him something challenging."
Rogue poured herself another drink in silence. After a long moment, a slow, calculating smile spread across her face.
"Alright," she murmured to herself. "Let's see if you've really got the chrome you pretend to have."
"Don't disappoint me... my little self-righteous kid."
She downed the drink in one gulp and closed her eyes.